Snoop to Nuts by Lee Elizabeth

Author:Lee, Elizabeth [Lee, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780425261415
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2015-01-06T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-one

It felt good to walk between stainless steel tables lined with new cultivars in pots of all sizes. The smell of earth and water and the heat of the greenhouse were what I knew best. For the last five years, since getting my master’s in biological and agricultural engineering at Texas A&M, I’d had the same dream. For too many years, growing up on the farm, I’d seen the heartbreak of trees that didn’t bud, of trees riddled with scab fungus or powdery mildew, vein spot, articularia leaf mold, and on and on. I’d seen years when the meat inside the pecans turned brown and rotted. Years when pink mold destroyed the crop. The pecan trees were prone to one thing after another, from too much water to none at all, to aphids and other insects burrowing into the bark.

Too many ranchers went far into debt and never recouped their losses. Some lost their farms. If I could stop even part of that heartbreak, all my years of study and hard work would be well worth it.

I reached out to turn a pot and then to brush dirt from the shining tables to the floor. I didn’t hear Martin Sanchez until he was standing behind me.

“Good to see you.” Martin removed his hat and dipped his head.

I returned the greeting.

A short man with a thick head of steely white hair, Martin had a smile that was always wide and warming. As long as I could remember, the Sanchez family had lived in the plain old house that had been the original Blanchard home on the ranch—the place where Jessie and I both grew up.

Martin quickly reported on the new cultivars we’d recently transplanted to the test grove to harden off. “Doing well,” he said. “I’ve cut back on water.”

I nodded. I felt this particular tree, one from California that I’d crossed with the native Pawnee, was showing signs of particular strengths, like a few of the others in my test grove. Not just drought resistance, but resistance to some of the fungus diseases, too.

Martin lingered awhile then said he had to get back out to the groves. He was meeting Justin—a spraying program getting under way.

“But, Lindy . . .” He stopped on his way out through the gleaming tables. “Could you come by the house today? Juanita said if I saw you, I should ask—whenever you can. Jessie told her something. Well, I’ll let her explain. I was only half listening . . .”

I nodded. It would be a pleasure to stop and see Juanita. My mouth watered at the thought of Juanita’s hot chocolate, and maybe a pan de yema, a sweet roll native to Oaxaca, Mexico, where the family was from. If Juanita heard I was coming, she’d have it ready for me. Juanita never failed.

It was close to eleven o’clock when Hunter called and my work for the day was suddenly over.

“You coming back to town? We gotta talk. I’m starving. How about The Squirrel in forty-five minutes? Can you make it?”

“I want to stop and see Juanita first.

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